Observations on politics, news, culture and humor

Public sector union power grab

Have you heard of the Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act? I hadn’t. It’s a bill before Congress right now that would force states to grant collective bargaining powers to new classes of workers. Guess who would benefit from that scenario? Public sector unions. The same unions that have already given this country two classes of workers: the privileged ones of the public sector and the unlucky schlubs in the private sector who pay for them. The same unions that are among the most loyal supporters of the Democratic Party. Hmm.

Reihan Salam did a great post on the bill on his policy blog at National Review. It’s written with Republican voters in mind, but it demolishes this bill on every major front, pointing out its gross, unnecessary violation of states’ rights as well as its further empowerment of public sector unions. The federalism point is especially damning; even if you support collective bargaining rights in your state, what gives you the right to impose your position on people in another state who might not care at all?

The National Review editors sounded the siren with a piece of their own. It doesn’t really address the federalism question as well as Salam’s post does, but it’s still worth reading.

And then via Brian Doherty at Reason comes this LA Times piece on Maywood, CA, the community so bankrupt it was forced to fire all municipal workers and agree to purchase services from a nearby town. Hmm, I wonder if the bankruptcy had anything to do with the salaries and benefits the municipal workers were drawing. It’s just too bad the U.S. can’t fire all of its government workers and pay for services from Canada.